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2/26/2013

Doc-ing in Memphis

West of Memphis

(USA/New Zealand, 147 min.)

Dir. Amy Berg, Writ. Amy Berg, Billy McMillin

Photo by Olivia Fougeirol, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

“We the filmmakers find the defendant guilty on all counts.”
Director Amy Berg (Deliver Us From Evil)
puts American’s legal system on trial in West
of Memphis, and the documentary delivers a verdict that satisfies everyone
and no one. West of Memphis arrives
at this thesis by deliberating the sensational trial of the three men known as
the West Memphis Three. Deliberate or not, Berg’s examination of the case is a
provocative and compelling condemnation of a system run amok.

The gist of the WM3 case is that three young boys were
brutally murdered in the small town of West Memphis, Arkansas. Discovered bound
and naked in a creek, the boys were presumed to be victims of a
violent/sexual/ritualistic attack by Satanists. One young man in the area,
Damien Echols, fit the profile of somebody who “might be capable of something
like that.” Along with two other young men, Jason Misskelley Jr. and Jason
Baldwin, Echols was tried and convicted for the crimes.

The film outlines the understandable emotional sensitivity
of such a proceeding, as Berg interviews parents of the victims who outline a
hazy period of grief and anger. The rumors about the perceived unorthodox
nature of the crime, however, spilled the anger into the community, which, fuelled
by a daytime TV-like moral panic, created a mob mentality that cast the three
defendants as Satanic menaces to society. As Echols’s wife, Lorri Davis,
explains, the West Memphis Three were essentially convicted by the court of
public opinion and not by a watertight case of evidence.

West of Memphis
moves from the trial to a second act that chronicles Davis’s struggle to prove
her husband’s innocence. The case sparks great media attention and catches the
eye of celebrity supporters like Eddie Vedder, Johnny Depp, and most notably,
Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh. The husband and wife filmmaking team behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy give Davis
invaluable support. Jackson explains the convolutions of the plot, which
unravels like a thriller plotted for the cinema. (Appropriately enough, the tale of the West Memphis Three will be dramatized in the upcoming Atom Egoyan film Devil's Knot.)Rather than overwhelm the film
with their star status, the addition of Vedder, Jackson, et al (Walsh never
appears onscreen) illustrates the life this case saw when it was allowed to
travel beyond the scene of the crime. Berg leaves little room to question the
innocence of the West Memphis Three, but the film shows that they probably
would have stayed behind bars had a roster of celebrities not taken an interest
in their case, since not everyone can afford the pursuit of justice.

Thanks to a crackerjack team of investigators for the
defense, Davis et al build a strong case that calls into doubt the guilt of the
West Memphis Three. West of Memphis
builds a compelling alternative theory to explain the errors in judgement and
it provides a persuasive, well-supported hypothesis to elucidate a plausible
charge of guilt for the potential killer. One cannot help but feel appalled at
the gross imbalance between the detective work undertaken by the group of
filmmakers and the lackadaisical investigation performed by the state. Likewise,
the film presents such a convincing alternate theory that one can only watch
and see the Three caught in a game of politics as the state officials choose to
hold on to a dead end, rather than risk their popularity in the pursuit of justice.
West of Memphis is investigative
journalist in its most cinematic form.

There’s a fitting symmetry to this tale that sees the trio
tried and convicted by a Helen Lovejoy-ish mob mentality, only to be freed by a
collective awakening. West of Memphis
shows the power that can be achieved when a group of people choose to question
the facts with which they are presented and to challenge the systems that allow
injustice to occur. Even more disturbing, though, is seeing the gaps in logic
and evidence that were overlooked during the initial trial, yet ineffectual in
creating legal doubt once they came to light.

This is a great documentary. Berg packs an ample backstory into
the film while deconstructing the case retrospectively with fresh eyes and new
ideas. West of Memphis is
well-researched and argumentatively sound, but the end result is unsettling.

The film, unfortunately, omits a full explanation of a crucial legal tidbit
that proves to be the crux of freeing the Three. It’s a tad confusing to see
such a contradictory clause act as the saving grace in the affair, since little
justice seems to be served by the film's end. The ambiguity of the Three’s
plea, however, offers a convenient route for discussing the obvious gaps in the
case, and for underscoring the film’s philosophical musing that guilt and
innocence seem to play a minor role in America’s judicial system. By the film’s
end, it seems that culpability resides only in a legal clause. This trial
resulted in lose-lose situation for all parties, since the only winner seems to
be the real killer who got away scot-free.